


i just want to see you smile

by avid_author_activist



Series: Ranger's Apprentice Drabbles [2]
Category: Ranger's Apprentice - John Flanagan
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Fluff and Angst, Gen, M/M, but the end result was a tiny bit choppy smfh, i almost cried writing this not even going to lie, minor gore, trigger warning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-24
Updated: 2019-08-24
Packaged: 2020-09-25 02:27:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,006
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20369125
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/avid_author_activist/pseuds/avid_author_activist
Summary: Halt, Crowley, and Gilan are on a recruiting mission in Norgate fief...





	i just want to see you smile

**Author's Note:**

> Credit: anon ask for tumblr prompt "I just want to see you smile" for Cralt  
TRIGGER WARNING: MINOR GORE, BLOOD, INJURY  
This occurs, if anyone's curious, about two to three years after the Battle of Hackham Heath. Gilan is in his first year of apprenticeship, so fourteen to fifteen years old. Crowley and Halt are in Norgate fief to recruit a Ranger, because they're still in the process of rebuilding to Corps.
> 
> If I have time later, I'll remix this into a longer fic (10k-20k) because I didn't get to write a lot of Gilan as Halt's apprentice in this and I need that in my life.  
Hope you guys enjoy!

Halt glanced down at his northseeker for the fiftieth time, praying to all the gods he believed in, and some he didn’t, that it was accurate. The trail had been all but obliterated by a blanket of snow, and the sky was overcast. They could blunder around for hours if they didn’t have the correct bearings, and in these conditions, that could be fatal. 

Nothing about the situation was ideal, he thought. The storm had blown in with no warning, and both he and Crowley had forgotten to unstring and stow their bows when the snows had hit. The cold caused wood bows to become temporarily unusable, more a danger to their owners than their enemies. Luckily, Gilan’s bow was safe, stored in his saddlebags because Gil was wearing his sword instead. 

The cold was starting to bite now that the sun was setting, stretching its icy fingers through every gap in their cloaks, stinging their eyes and numbing their faces. Halt fumbled the map with frozen fingers. Cursing, he bent over Abelard’s neck to retrieve it.

It was that movement that saved his life.

A dagger hissed through the air, a hairsbreadth from where his head had been a split-second before. Had Halt not moved, it would have taken his eye out. As it was, he was left with a very painful nick in his ear. 

Abelard whinnied in alarm. Halt turned instinctively toward the direction of attack, deflecting another dagger with his saxe knife. His hand reached for his bow on instinct but grasped only empty air. 

Cursing, Halt slid off his horse, finding that Crowley had already done the same. Armed with only daggers, they could no longer fight effectively from horseback. Only Gilan remained on Blaze, drawing his sword and pirouetting around with almost frightening ease. 

“What do we have here?” Halt asked quietly.

A group of outlaws emerged from the tree line. Halt counted around eight, maybe upwards of ten. This would be a tough fight, especially when he and Crowley were both armed with only knives. 

One bandit stepped forward, clearly the leader of the group. “Well, now. A group of Rangers travelling in an unknown fief without their big bad longbows? Looks like easy prey to me,” he drawled. 

He was dressed in white and gray furs, the mottling pattern reminiscent of a Ranger cloak, and he held his sword like he knew which end of it was which. Halt realized with a terrible sinking sensation that these were people who knew what they were doing. 

“I’m saying this, by the way, so _you _ know that _we _ know _ exactly _ who we’re dealing with. Not all of us are scared of you and your damned cloaks.” The leader raised one eyebrow, and Halt felt an unneccessary frisson of rage. That was _his _expression. 

His heart pounded in his chest. “Who are you?” he asked. 

The brigand only laughed, ignoring the question. “Why don’t you all drop your little daggers on the ground?” he asked instead. “Saxe and throwing knives both.” 

Halt hesitated, his mind frantically searching for a way out of their situation, and found none. They had been ambushed, and the trap had been well-planned. There was no way out.

_ For now_, he thought grimly. Nothing better than a healthy dose of sheer desperation for hatching ingenious plans. 

“Come, now,” the bandit said, as if he knew what Halt was thinking. “You’re in no position to bargain. You’re surrounded by my men, including one who can put a knife through your heart at a hundred paces. Drop your weapons.” 

Halt numbly placed his saxe on the ground, followed by his throwing knife. He heard two dull thuds behind him as Crowley did the same. 

The bandit nodded, a smile on his face that didn’t reach his eyes. They were the eyes of a hard man, Halt thought. Then he amended the statement. Those were the eyes of a _cruel _man. 

“Kick them away from you. No sudden movements. My man over there gets pretty uptight. Don’t want any happy accidents, now, do we?” Halt was hoping he would gesture at the man in question, but the leader kept his dark gaze fixed on Halt and Crowley. He didn’t seem to have to blink as much as a normal person. This was getting better and better, Halt thought. There wasn’t a single rudimentary mistake he could exploit. 

“You, boy!” the leader snapped. “Come any closer and he’ll put a knife through both of your companions.” Gilan, who had slipped off his horse and was stealthily approaching the leader, froze, his mouth opening in surprise. What worried Halt was the fact that the bandit hadn’t seemed to look his way once.

“Drop your sword, too,” the leader said. Gilan hesitated before complying, placing his sword reluctantly on the ground. Halt’s hands tightened by his sides. Gil had no place in this. He was a boy, just a boy—

All hell broke loose.

Crowley’s throwing knife spun through the air, glinting wickedly, to bury itself in the chest of a bandit standing ten paces away. He threw up his arms in a silent cry of pain, and Halt saw with a glow of satisfaction that he carried nearly a dozen daggers in his belt. Crowley had picked the right target. 

But he had been disarmed—how had he managed to—

Halt’s gaze landed on the discarded weapons in the snow. Crowley had thrown down a regular skinning knife and a kitchen knife from their cooking kit, retaining his own weapons. Halt filed the trick away for use on a later date. 

Gilan dove through the snow, snatching his sword off the ground and flicking it across the throat of a second brigand before anyone could react. Halt felt a glow of pride spread through his chest. 

“Damn the orders, kill them!” the bandit leader snarled, seeing his man fall. “Kill them all!” As one, the brigands surged forward. 

Halt let his instincts take over, scything the legs out from underneath one bandit and hooking another one in the jaw. His left hand frantically scrabbled in the snow for his saxe, closing his fingers around it just in time to clumsily parry a sword stroke swung at him from a third enemy. 

This new swordsman was good, wielding his weapon with the same poise that Halt saw in Gilan’s swordwork. Without the additional leverage given by his throwing knife, Halt was forced to give ground, deflecting strikes from all sides. The sword reflected the snow until it seemed like a pinwheel of light, attacking from no direction and every direction at once. Every blow shook his already-numb arm until it was all he could do to hold on to his knife, his last measly defense against impending death. 

With a last, jarring stroke, the bandit knocked the saxe from Halt’s paralyzed grasp. Halt desperately rolled out of the way, knowing that he was still in reach of the terrible blade. His shoulders tensed, expecting the searing pain to land between his shoulder blades and end his life— 

“NO!” A strangled yell broke from someone’s throat. Crowley’s, Halt thought dimly. 

He rolled over in time to see a sandy-haired blur crash into the bandit’s side, sending them both plunging to the ground. Halt tried to get to his feet, but the snow hampered his movements. It had gotten inside his jerkin, into his boots, the neck of his cowl… he was burning with the cold of it, barely able to move. 

“Abelard!” he shouted, desperate. The little horse understood, charging through the snow, teeth bared, and knocked the bandit flying. His sword skidded the other way, trampled out of his grasp. Halt turned, satisfied the threat had been dealt with, his mouth opening to thank Crowley. 

Then he saw the blood. 

It spread ominously through the snow, an inexorable tide of crimson. In the middle lay Crowley, not stirring, as more and more of the ground around him turned red. It seemed impossible that one person could hold that much blood, that anyone could _ lose _that much blood without—

He refused to finish the thought.

Adrenaline surged through Halt’s veins, hot, scarlet, furious. He seized the nearest weapon—a crude branch, a meter long— and stabbed downward at the bandit’s face, heard bone crack, a horrible, sickening noise, felt blood spurt. This was his fault, his fault, _ all his fault— _

He stabbed again, _ again, _ and Abelard neighed, a rising note of terrible panic that brought Halt out of his frenzy. _ Crowley. Crowley. His fault. My fault. _

He noted distantly that Gilan had remounted Blaze and was routing the remaining bandits, that their leader was nowhere to be seen but had left a scarlet trail in the trampled snow, but Halt pushed all that to the side, nearly tripping over his own feet in his haste to get to his friend. He was deathly pale and his eyes were closed, but Halt thought he detected a faint rise and fall to his chest. 

“Crowley,” he rasped, fighting desperately to hold onto his composure. “Stay. Stay with me, please.” He dug through his saddlebags, retrieving bandages, healing salve, anything. Anything that could help. 

“Halt!” Gilan cantered over astride Blaze, who shook her mane, showering them all with snow. “Halt, we drove them off! We won!” He took in Halt’s ragged gaze and shaking hands and froze, seeing Crowley’s prone form for the first time. 

“Oh,” he said, very quietly. “Halt, what—what—”

“Not now!” Halt snapped, dropping to his knees by Crowley’s side. His hands searched for a pulse, fearing the worst. It was there, sluggishly so, but it was still there. But how much blood had Crowley lost? How much longer did he have before—

Halt took a deep breath, forcing back his anxiety. “Get a fire going, Gil,” he said. He had to keep calm for his apprentice’s sake. For Crowley’s sake. “We need heat, sterile bandages, and we need them now.”

Gilan started a small fire with deadfall, heating snow for boiling water. Halt cut away at Crowley’s jerkin with trembling fingers, taking care not to prick his friend with his saxe. The leather was slippery with wet blood, and Halt gagged as he gingerly lifted it away from Crowley’s skin. 

The wound was nearly twenty centimeters long, a gash along Crowley’s abdomen. He noted with relief that the gash wasn’t deep, and there was no sign of pumping blood; some of it in the snow must have belonged to the other bandits. No major arteries severed, all organs probably intact. That was good. 

Halt also noted a series of scratches along Crowley’s right arm, probably from where the two had grappled for the sword after the first impact. One of his eyes was blackened as well, but that was a problem for later. 

He focused his attention on the larger wound first, cleaning the blood away with water from his canteen, which thankfully hadn’t frozen over. Once it was clean, he generously applied healing salve along the whole area, then debated whether to bandage it or stitch it up. 

“Better have a healer take a look first,” Halt decided. He took the bandages out of the pot. The water they were using to sterilize them was just fifty degrees at best, but there was no time. Crowley had already lost a lot of blood, and the wound had to be closed _ now _. He secured the bandages in place. Blood seeped through the linen, but at a slower rate than before. 

“Gilan!” Halt called. His apprentice had been hovering near the fire for ten minutes now, and he wanted Gil to have something to do. “Ride like hell for Castle Norgate—shouldn’t be more than ten minutes away. Have them bring a healer as soon as possible. Drag him here by the scruff of the neck if you have to.” 

“Sir!” Gilan swung himself onto Blaze and galloped away, his cloak streaming behind him. He was hidden from view within seconds, lost to the twilight shadows. 

Halt threw a blanket over Crowley and stoked the fire. He wasn’t sure if Norgate had bears or wolves, but it was better to be safe than sorry. He retrieved Gilan’s recurve bow from the saddlebags, stringing and drawing it experimentally. It was far lighter than what Halt was accustomed to, but he would have to make do.

He sat back, having exhausted his immediate list of tasks. Crowley’s chest shuddered up and down as he fought for life. It was painful to watch. He wanted to turn away, but what if his friend breathed his last, and Halt wasn’t there because he had been too much of a coward to stay by Crowley’s side? He wasn’t sure if he would ever forgive himself. 

Halt shook his head, feeling utterly useless. There was nothing for him left to do but hope. 

Crowley’s eyes opened. For a second, they were filled with panic, and he tried to sit up. A searing pain shot through his torso as he aggravated his wounds, and he fell back again, defeated. 

“Wh—Halt,” he breathed. “Had me scared like hell. I thought they… they got you for a second there.”

“So—” Halt’s voice broke. “So did I.” 

Crowley nodded distantly. “I didn’t… didn’t know...” 

His eyes closed again, and his hand went slack in Halt’s grasp. For a dreadful second, Halt thought he had stopped breathing. Then Crowley sighed, his breath tickling Halt’s face, and he almost cried in relief. 

He rubbed gentle circles on Crowley’s wrist, barely conscious of what he was doing, talking in a steady, soothing voice. Whether the soothing was for himself or for Crowley, Halt didn’t know. 

“That tavern where we first met, do you remember?” he murmured. “We took down three of Morgarath’s beauties. Dragged them all the way to Castle Gorlan. Shot one in the calf: I have to admit, I enjoyed that. And that was the day we met, and also the day we met him, too: the Big Bad Wolf of this story.”

Part of him dimly wondered what he was doing. Halt had barely had the patience to listen to stories, let alone tell them. He continued anyway. 

“But what do you know: the soldiers came back the very next day, by Morgarath’s own order, no less. I shouldn’t have been surprised. It was bound to happen sooner or later. We fought them off, but you were in a spot of trouble when I showed up, if I recall correctly. Really showed him, though, didn’t we? So don’t you—don’t you die on me now.” Halt swallowed, squeezing his eyes shut, focusing on the circles, on the feeling of Crowley’s skin under his. “We’ve been through too much for that to happen,” he whispered. 

“Sometimes I sit down and think on what would’ve happened if I hadn’t turned around that day. I was about to run off to Gallica, but I stopped to—” Halt swallowed again, his throat suddenly dry. “To say goodbye to you. Can you imagine what would’ve happened if I hadn’t done that? He—”

“—might well be King,” Crowley murmured, and he stirred, opening his eyes again. “But don’t—don’t you get a big head over that.”

For once in his life, Halt was at a loss for words, his heart too full to speak. “How are you feeling?” he managed.

“Like—” Crowley coughed weakly. “Like I’ve just gotten filleted with a sword.” 

“I hadn’t noticed.”

“Glad—glad to see you care,” Crowley said, and both men smiled. 

“But in all seriousness,” he continued, his voice barely above a whisper. “There are things I want you to know if—”

“No,” Halt said. “You can’t talk like that. You’re not allowed to talk like that.” 

Halt could not imagine a world without his oldest friend in it. It would be like losing the moon and all the stars in the midnight sky. Like looking up and only seeing darkness where they had once shone bright. 

Crowley grasped his hand. “For the sake of this Kingdom, Halt, I will.” 

He took a deep breath. “I want you to succeed me as the Corps Commandant.”

Even though Halt had expected the words, he felt like he’d taken a hammerblow to the lungs. “Crowley, I can’t—” _ I can’t fill your shoes once you’re gone. I can’t replace _ you_. _

“You, or Gilan,” Crowley was saying. “I like what I see in him, Halt. He keeps a cool head under pressure, he isn’t afraid to take command, but more—more importantly, he was trained by _ you. _”

This time, Halt couldn’t keep the tears back. He let them fall, unashamed. Crowley deserved those tears, he thought. 

At last, he managed to regain his composure. “There won’t be a need for that,” he said firmly. “There’s—there’s a healer coming, and they’ll get you fixed up. You’ll be fine. You’ll see.” He realized he was rambling on and stopped talking, fidgeting with a twig he’d picked up off the ground. “Sorry, Crowley. Is there anything else you need?”

Crowley shook his head, then paused. “Forgive the odd request, but—”

“Anything, old friend,” Halt said. 

“I want... to see you smile,” Crowley said, so softly that Halt thought he had misheard. “I just want to see you smile.” 

“Anything,” Halt whispered again, and then he smiled. 

It was a sad smile, but there was light in it too, a brightness that Halt hadn’t let anyone see since he had left Dun Kilty, since his sister Caitlyn had gone to an early grave. He let it spread across his face for Crowley with a fierce kind of joy, unhindered, unbounded. It was like a meteor after moonset, Crowley thought, like a light had come on in Halt’s soul. 

A light as bright as the moon and all the stars; a light that stayed with Crowley as he closed his eyes again, one word on his lips: 

“_Halt_.” 

And he knew, with a fiery certainty, that everything would be alright. 


End file.
